It seems obvious, but as preachers of the Bible we are preachers of written texts.  Or are we?  I am not questioning the inspiration of the Bible – my view of Scripture is as high as ever.  I am sharing a helpful prod I received this week in a book I was reading.  In this book there was a critique of the standard writer/text/reader model of New Testament communication – an overly simplistic model, perhaps.  The writer suggested it would be helpful to consider the actual process involved in communicating a New Testament epistle.  The process suggested was Author-Secretary-Courier-Reader, with oral “rehearsal” included at various stages.  The author was not sitting at a desk with quill in hand, but dictating so the secretary (amanuensis) could inscribe the letter.  The author was also concerned with the ability of the courier to be able to then read the text effectively, for the recipients weren’t reading their mail, but rather listening to the spoken word (probably numerous times).

While the writer/text/reader model of communication is simple and accurate at a certain level, it does fall short in representing the orality of the original text.  Perhaps we have not given the Bible text, especially the epistles in this case, enough credit for their oral-communication features.  Literary features abound and so do the scholarly studies into them.  But perhaps there is a need for more studies into the orality features of the biblical text?  And as preachers, perhaps we need to think more about the oral nature of the texts we preach.  There are many possible implications.

Do we preach written texts?  Yes.  But more than that, we preach spoken texts written in order to be spoken, and very importantly, heard.